Cast in Ruin. Michelle Sagara
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squinted, looking at the sword, in part because she could. There, along the flat of the blade she could see carved—and glowing—runes. They were, like the giant’s name, ancient words. She cursed in Leontine, but the words apparently failed to leave her mouth, because she couldn’t hear them, either.
What could she hear?
The movement of a giant. The whistling fall of his sword. The muted movement of Shadow, which sounded like the rustle and gather of fallen, dead leaves in a dry wind. The earth, in the universe her ears now inhabited, was not being broken; the Shadows, in the same universe, weren’t speaking.
She was still frozen in place, although time hadn’t stopped. She tried to step back, tried—again—to turn, with no effect. Taking a deep breath, she accepted the inevitable and took a step forward. Forward worked. Of course, forward led her to, and not away from, the giant; forward led her to, and not away from, the border. She was momentarily glad that she couldn’t hear anyone else because she was fairly certain at least a handful of people were now shouting choice phrases at her in their native tongues.
But the border yielded to her in a way that it didn’t yield to the would-be invaders: with ease, and without the necessity of a lot of collateral destruction. The landscape didn’t magically change with the crossing; the colors didn’t return; neither did sound. But the runes developed a texture and a dimension as she approached them, which made the sword look decidedly more unwieldy.
The giant noticed her only when she was five yards away. His eyes widened slightly, and his sword arm—well, arms, given the overhand swing—stilled. He then turned toward her; the word at his core didn’t shift at all.
But it wasn’t a complicated word. It wasn’t like the name of the Outcaste Dragon; it wasn’t as immense as the name of a world. Kaylin began, as the giant slowly ambled toward her, to speak it. To speak his name, even though she couldn’t understand what she was saying.
Speech was now an act of instinct. She wasn’t speaking to make herself heard or to be understood; she wasn’t speaking to communicate. She was buying time, because she had no doubt at all that if the giant reached her, speech would be impossible. Breathing might also be an issue.
Names in the old tongue had syllables that, in any other language, would compose an entire paragraph’s worth of words. Or a page. Or a book. They couldn’t be spoken quickly in a breathless rush; enunciating them at all was like trying to speak with a mouth full of molasses. It was messy, it took effort, and it was probably unpleasant to watch.
But as the syllables came, the giant’s steps slowed and faltered, as if he was keeping time to her awkward struggle to speak. To speak, she realized, to him. The giant was, or had once been, a man. Not a human; humans didn’t have names like this at their core. But inasmuch as Dragons and Barrani were alive, he had once been alive.
His sword was no longer raised above his head; he lowered it, letting one hand fall away. The free hand, he raised in her direction, where it tapered from fist to point. She continued to speak, but as she did, he began to speak, as well. His voice was the low rumble of moving earth—a Dragon’s human voice, but slightly deeper and slightly fuller.
She couldn’t understand a word of it.
But even as she thought it, she realized that understanding what he meant to say wasn’t quite the same as understanding its effect: he was trying to tell her his name. He was trying, as she was, to speak the whole of it even as he closed the distance. He was also going to kill her if he could; that was clear. But he knew that if she knew his true name, she could prevent him. This utterance was the whole of his attempt at self-control.
And he wanted it.
His desire gave her strength; his speech gave her attempt a more solid foundation. She continued to speak, but as she did, she understood why Mejrah and her companions chanted in unison: she was speaking his name as a harmony to his speech. It was like song, like music, like a chorus of two. It grew louder as she grew more certain; it came faster, because she was no longer struggling to find, to feel, the syllables. Every syllable spoken caused him to lose height.
When he at last reached her, he was a mere eight feet—or eight and a half—in height, and his blade was no longer so big it could stave in rooftops. And as she spoke what she knew were the last three syllables, the blade fell from his hands, landing on the ground between their feet.
She looked at him. The armor still girded him, but he was now the size and shape of…of a refugee. He wasn’t young; he might have been older than Severn, but it was hard to tell; if he had a name, he should be immortal.
At least in this world.
His hands were shaking as he lifted them and removed his helm. In the dark light of altered vision, the helm shone like polished ebony as it rested in the crook of his arm. His eyes were clear, and they were a shade of gold that looked both familiar and wrong in his face. He spoke again, and this time, she lifted a hand and walked toward him slowly, until she could touch what she could still clearly see: his name, the name he had spoken with her, and by speaking, had given into her keeping. When she touched it, she could hear his voice so clearly it was almost a song.
“Chosen,” he said softly. “You are Chosen.”
Kaylin nodded; her arms were glowing so strongly the runes could be seen.
“But you are not of the People.”
“Not of your people, no. Do you know where you are?”
“I am in the heartland,” he replied. It made, of the word heart, something to be dreaded or loathed.
“Do you know what you were doing?”
“Yes. I was summoning my forces to do battle against the fortress of…our enemy.” He lifted a mailed hand, and removed, with effort, a gauntlet. His hands were callused and scarred; he lifted them to those startling eyes, dimming them a moment.
“Call them back.”
He nodded, and lifted the mailed hand. “I cannot hold them for long,” he told her. “Not as I…am.” He bowed to her then. “I can send them from the border for now.”
“And what will you do?”
“I will be called, sooner or later, and I will follow.”
“You can’t—”
“Can you give me back my name, Chosen? Can you, when you cannot take it and use it as your own? I would serve you, could you hold me. But the name is not known to you alone.”
Even as he spoke, she heard the whispers of a distant voice.
“Maggaron,” she said softly. And then, in the silence of thought, Maggaron. It wasn’t the whole of his name as she’d struggled to pronounce it, but it was the expression of what she’d achieved. Just as Nightshade’s name had been, and was, although this was the first time she understood the fact as fact.
He smiled; it was a pained, tortured expression. Yes. The mental bond came with the true name.
Are you alive?
Is this life? I would not be considered alive by the People.
Could they cleanse you?
Ah. No. It is not…an infestation or a contamination of that nature, Chosen. I am used against myself; nothing else is required.
Kaylin snorted. “You’re not a twenty-foot-tall giant; you didn’t get that on your own. You’ve been living in shadow, in the Shadows, for how long?”
“What does time signify here?”
“Spoken like an Immortal,” she snorted. She heard shouting, voices, and one loud roar, as the world suddenly returned; she turned to meet it.
The road was a mess because it wasn’t really road anymore; there were patches of it that were still glowing an unpleasant orange, and whole new ditches that would kill any horses anyone was stupid enough to drive this far into the fief’s interior.